Illinois Delegation Tries To Be As Diverse As State

Politicians, Minorities And Women From The City, Suburbs And Downstate Make Up The 194 Members.

August 29, 1996|By Christi Parsons, Tribune Staff Writer.

Last spring, Irene Brodie, the mayor of Robbins, received a call from a friend in the local Democratic Party. He told her Brodie would see her name on the primary ballot as a Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

"I said, `Oh?' I hadn't even asked for it,' " Brodie recalled. "I didn't even campaign. I had some people call me up and say, `Why didn't you tell us you were on the ballot?' I said, `I've been so busy, I forgot.' "

Brodie's road to the convention was more easily traveled than most. Other members of the delegation actively lobbied for a spot in the crowd that has renominated President Clinton, especially after it was announced that Chicago would be the host city.

But otherwise, Brodie is typical of the 194 Democrats who make up the Illinois contingent. As an outspoken mayor, she is among the best-known Democrats in the south suburban area. As an African-American woman from the suburbs, she's an example of the Illinois delegation's diverse makeup.

Half the state's delegates are women, 21 percent are black, 11 percent are Hispanic and 3 percent are Asian-American. The ranks draw proportionately from Chicago, the suburbs and Downstate.

"It is an Illinois delegation that looks like Illinois," said David Wilhelm, a Chicago banker, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and currently the president's point man on the selection of delegates.

"You look at the Republican delegation from Illinois and out of the whole delegation only one person was African-American," he said. "Ours is balanced in terms of ethnicity and geography."

There was a time when the Illinois Democratic Party wasn't particularly keen on that idea. Some Chicago Democratic leaders brazenly defied new party rules in 1972 that required diversity among state delegates, and, as a consequence, had their delegation booted out of that year's national convention in Miami Beach.

But times have changed. Wilhelm set up a committee with representatives from various parts of the state and different ethnic groups. The panel took suggestions from local party leaders, then selected for the March 19 primary ballot a slate of delegates that represented the ethnic makeup of each congressional district. Wilhelm's group then appointed at-large delegates.

"We were careful to follow the guidelines," said Jim Wall, editor of Christian Century magazine, who helped Wilhelm. "We wanted to make sure we met all affirmative-action guidelines."

This is one reason delegates such as Brodie were so highly sought. Other prominent African-American and Hispanic delegates include Willie Barrow, chairwoman of the board of Operation PUSH; Chicago city Treasurer Miriam Santos; U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun; U.S. Reps. Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson Jr., Luis Gutierrez and Cardiss Collins; state Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones Jr. of Chicago; and several other state lawmakers.

Democrats also tried to get recognizable names to put on the ballot alongside Clinton's. The head of the delegation is U.S. Rep. Dick Durbin of Springfield, the party's nominee for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Paul Simon. Other members are Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Illinois House Minority Leader Mike Madigan of Chicago, Chicago aldermen and mayors from around the state.

The delegation includes the Illinois congressional delegation and 13 state senators and nine state representatives.

But not everybody who lobbied for a position made it--due, in part, to diversity guidelines. Also, local party leaders hope to court certain voter groups and cultivate promising future party leaders by making them delegates.

"I helped get this one woman appointed," said state Sen. Howard Carroll of Chicago, a Democratic committeeman in his Far North Side district. "I said to the Clinton representatives, `Let's reach out to this very good Indo-American group we have.' I said, `We should pay some respect to them.' Now she's representing more than herself. She's representing her group, and it spurs her to reach out to them and have more voter registration."

Like Carroll, many of the delegates have been to other conventions. Ellen Sinclair of Salem has traveled to every convention since 1956 and has been a delegate four previous times. State Sen. Penny Severns of Decatur was the youngest delegate to the 1972 convention at age 20. She is the vice chairman of the state delegation.

Ellen O'Connor, director of marketing for Chicago's Planning and Development Department, was a teenage volunteer at the 1968 convention.